Joy Brigade (5 page)

Kim Il-sung had publicly and repeatedly vowed to reunify Korea before he retired. Eighth Army believed him. The time for that to happen was now. This winter.

Here in Nampo, the leaves were off the trees. Cold winds were already blowing out of Manchuria. Soon, Old Man Winter would rouse himself from his snowy home in Siberia, lumber across the Asian landmass, and find his way into the long-suffering peninsula known as Frozen Chosun. He’d bring with him ice and snow and, it was believed, war.

I was still doubled over from the butt of the AK-47 that had been rammed into my gut. Commander Koh still puffed on his cigarette, studying me as if I were some sort of vermin that had to be stomped into submission. But even he seemed startled by the roar that emanated from the man in a brown felt army uniform who stood at the edge of the plaza. What he said was incomprehensible, but he left no doubt that he was enraged. The man was enormous for a Korean. He stormed across the plaza, shoving armed soldiers out of the way, and within seconds he stood toe-to-toe with Commander Koh.

“Weikurei!”
he bellowed. What the hell are you doing?

The voice was as deep and as full-throated as any voice I’d ever heard. His bulging cheeks turned red and shook
as he spoke, spittle erupting from moist lips. He leaned so close to Commander Koh that their noses touched.

Like Commander Koh, the enraged man wore a cap with a gold-backed red star in the center, but his was a soft cap, the cap of a workingman. He also wore the ubiquitous broach with a picture of the smiling face of the Great Leader pinned to his chest. Something dangled from a lanyard around the big man’s neck, flickering in the light of nervous torches: a photograph, apparently of this man, standing next to and shaking the hand of the Great Leader, Kim Il-sung himself. It was the type of photo that in the West we’d have tacked to the wall of our office.

Commander Koh held his own. He squinted up at the taller man, pointing at me, hollering back that I had escaped from the Port of Nampo and therefore I was his prisoner.

The bigger man’s eyes bulged, and, like a great torrent unleashed, words rushed out of his mouth, washing away any argument Commander Koh was trying to make. The big man pointed at me, waggling his forefinger. He was shouting that it was ludicrous beyond belief that Command Koh should think that he in any way had any jurisdiction here, outside of the port, or any reason in the great wide world to be arresting a man who was clearly the responsibility of the People’s Police of the City of Nampo.

Or at least that’s what I thought he said. The words came out so fast and furious, tumbling over one another; they were like a crowd in a burning theater rushing for the exits.

Commander Koh protested.

The big man leaned into him until their foreheads
touched, shoving the rattled Commander backward even further, screaming at the top of his lungs. He would brook no argument. I don’t believe I’d ever seen a person so outraged. In America, we would’ve long since been exchanging blows, or gunshots.

Koreans believe that throwing a punch reflects poorly on the person who throws it. The person who does such an uncouth thing reveals himself to be an uneducated oaf and his victim wins the argument, at least in the public mind, by default. The greatest fear, much greater than the fear of physical harm, was the fear of losing face.

Gradually, the big man’s argument concerning jurisdiction seemed to be gaining traction. Between shouts, Commander Koh looked pensive, probably calculating the cost of defying this man—whoever he was—and comparing it to the cost of backing down and returning to his little fiefdom at the Port of Nampo.

The bigger man sensed Koh’s wavering and pressed his advantage, shouting louder than ever, waving his arms, his face turning so beet red that I expected him at any moment to keel over. But the big man maintained his footing and Commander Koh turned his face, now staring at me kneeling on the ground, then staring at his men, who, still clutching their automatic weapons, shuffled their feet nervously across the cobbled stones.

Finally, Commander Koh threw up his arms.

“Kurom,”
he said. So be it. “If that’s the way you want it, take him. Take him! He’s your problem now. Just, whatever you do, don’t return him to us.” Commander Koh waved his hand in front of the big man’s face. “We don’t want him.”

For once, the big man remained passive.

Commander Koh swiveled and bellowed at his men. “What are you doing? Have you no military discipline? Form your ranks! Stand straight like soldiers. Let’s go! Get moving!”

Commander Koh, his back to the bigger man, maintained an air of scholarly dignity. Without looking back, he followed his troops into one of the larger alleys. In seconds, their footsteps faded in muddy lanes.

The big man, still breathing heavily, stood with his arms akimbo, the redness in his face ebbing. I dared not move. Finally, he turned and looked at me.

“Iro-nah!”
he said. Get up!

I did.

“Follow me.” He turned and strode away, but after a few steps he turned back, noticing that my hands were still tied behind my back. He stopped and reached into a coat pocket, pulling out a knife. The blade flashed open. As he approached, I held my breath, standing stock-still. Roughly, he grabbed me by the shoulder and twisted me around. He was only a few inches shorter than I, huge for a Korean, since I stand six foot four. He must’ve weighed two hundred pounds easy. From the wisps of gray in his hair and the slightly loose texture of his jowls, I estimated that he was older than I by a couple of decades, in his early- to mid-forties, but he was still strong and quick. With a deft slash, he cut the wire cord and the loose ends fell away. I rubbed my wrists. He stared up at me, subdued now after such an unseemly public display of emotion.

However, there was no public to be seen. During all this commotion, not a peep had come from the surrounding
homes; not so much as a window being lifted, nor a door sliding open, nor a candle being lit.

The man who had saved me from Commander Koh seemed to be thinking something over. Finally he said,
“ko-ah.”
Orphan. The password.

I replied with the response:
“Manju-ei ko-ah.”
An orphan from Manchuria.

The big man looked at me impassively, then he said,
“Bali ka-ja.”
Quickly, let’s go.

I followed him toward the flickering light.

His name was Hero Kang. He showed me the photograph hanging from his neck. It was framed in varnished wood and showed a much younger version of himself standing in full military uniform next to the Great Leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, shaking hands. Both men were smiling. Hero Kang told me that the photograph was taken in Pyongyang in the Great Hall of the People almost twenty years ago, after the end of the Korean War.

“You must’ve been very brave,” I said, “to receive such an honor.”

His round face grimaced. He changed the subject.

After we’d escaped from the plaza of the barren elm, Kang led me down a narrow alleyway and opened the door to a dirt-floored storage building that held the flickering candle I’d seen from the opposite side of the plaza. After bolting the front door from the inside, he lifted the tin tray that held the candle and I followed him out a back door. He secured the door with a padlock. Then he doused the candle and we proceeded to wind our way through the
narrow alleys of Nampo, lit only by moonlight. We must’ve traveled at least a mile, and during all that time we encountered no major intersections, no roads wide enough for a truck or even a small automobile. Hero Kang seemed to know this warren of byways as if he’d been born into it.

Finally, we reached another wooden warehouse. Hero Kang shuffled through a ring of keys in his pocket, popped the padlock, and we pushed through the splintered door. After relighting the candle, Kang motioned for me to sit on a raised platform partially loaded with sacks of grain. In front were a series of handcarts, and I realized this small warehouse and the one we’d been in before were part of a distribution network that started at the large warehouse closer to the port. Food is not sold in North Korea, at least not officially; it is issued based on rations. The rations themselves are based on a complicated set of rules. For example, a laborer receives more rice than a child or an elderly woman who no longer has a job outside of the home. On paper, it sounds fair, but in practice, at least according to my Eighth Army briefings, those in positions of power—the military, the police, and especially the Communist cadres—receive the lion’s share. I figured Hero Kang must be an important man in Nampo if he was in charge of grain distribution.

After I sat down, I took off my peacoat and used the back of my hand to wipe perspiration off my forehead. I was about to thank Hero Kang for rescuing me when he said, “You must help me with a chore.”

I sat very still, and waited.

Hero Kang studied me. “I’ve been told that you are bright and resourceful.”

“Who told you that?”

His cheeks started to redden. “You ask too many questions. Listen! That will serve you better.”

I chided myself for speaking too soon. Wait. See what he was proposing.

Hero Kang slipped off his left shoe. Brown low quarters, not boots, well worn but apparently well made. I wondered if they had shoe factories in North Korea or if there were still cobblers who made shoes by hand, as they did in South Korea. A pebble dropped out of the shoe and Hero Kang slipped it back on, retying the laces carefully. Then he looked back at me.

“I have a chore to complete,” he said. “A vital chore.” He spoke slowly, enunciating every word, wanting to make sure that I understood his Korean. “Do you understand?”

I nodded. He continued.

“It is a chore I don’t really want to do but one that, for the sake of the people, I must do. It is a difficult chore and I will need help, but amongst the people of this country, this frightened country, there are few I can trust. You are a foreigner. You have nothing to lose. No parents, no children, no wife.”

He was right. More than he knew. I had no one back in the States. I was an orphan—my mother had died years ago, and I’d been brought up in foster homes, thanks to the largesse of the superintendents of the County of Los Angeles. The one person I did have, I hoped, was Doctor Yong In-ja.

“The only thing you have to lose,” Hero Kang continued, “is your life.”

He waited for me to react. I didn’t. At least I don’t
think I did. I’d known how dangerous this mission would be when I took it. I’d even written out a will of sorts, in longhand. It was taped to the inside of my wall locker back at the Eighth Army compound. I knew Ernie would find it if I didn’t come back. I didn’t have much in the way of material possessions to leave—clothes, a portable typewriter, a few dollars in a bank account—but what little I did have I left to a Catholic orphanage on the edge of Itaewon. That and my Servicemen’s Group Life Insurance, which I’d designated to go to my heir, if it turned out I had one.

Satisfied with my silence, Hero Kang continued.

“My country is filled with evil men,” he said. “They betray our revolution daily, but to hear them tell it, they are protectors of the people.” Hero Kang laughed sardonically. “Protectors of the people.” He shook his head in disgust. “They are parasites on the backs of the people. They are rapists. They are cannibals.”

As if suddenly realizing that he’d said too much, Hero Kang glanced around the warehouse.

“I would never talk like this to a Korean,” he said. “The chance of betrayal is too great. It’s not that my people are evil. But if by betraying you they can obtain a better job, a larger food ration, a chance for their children to go to university, they will do it. Because they are desperate. Because they know no better. Because they are constantly told that to betray someone’s trust is patriotic.” Hero Kang shook his head. “With foreigners, people from outside our world, one lets one’s defenses down. And it’s been so long since I spoke frankly to anyone. And besides, it’s too late now.” He sat up straighter, throwing back his shoulders.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we leave on the train. We will be traveling to Pyongyang.”

I thought about this for a second, remembering my main reason for being here. “There’s someone I must meet,” I said. “It is my duty. Is she there? In Pyongyang?”

Kang shook his head. “Not there, but it is a necessary stop. After this chore is completed, she will be safer. Then, I assure you, I will take you to her.”

“No,” I said, surprising him. “Before I do anything, I must see her, make sure that she’s safe.”

Hero Kang studied me, amazed apparently, at my temerity. So far, he was my only point of contact in the entire country. All I knew about Doc Yong’s whereabouts was that she was somewhere in North Korea. I either trusted Hero Kang or I was worth less than a handful of
nurungji
, the burnt crust on the bottom of a rice pot. But maybe I was burnt crust anyway. Before I did anything, before I was either killed or captured or tortured by the North Korean authorities, I wanted to see Doctor Yong In-ja. My cooperation was my only bargaining chip and I’d withhold it until I saw her.

“There is a tournament,” he said slowly, as if speaking to an idiot, “for foreigners. Every year the winner is allowed as an honored guest into a place that is reserved only for the highest echelons of the Korean Workers’ Party. We have managed to slip one agent in there, but no others. How that agent is faring, we do not know. We’ve received only one message, a message of the highest priority. A plea for immediate assistance.”

“What,” I asked, “does all this have to do with me?”

“You are a
foreigner
,” Hero Kang roared. He glanced
around, surprised by the rage in his voice. When he spoke again, his voice was more controlled. “It is a Taekwondo tournament, for foreigners only, in Pyongyang. You are a black belt, are you not?”

I nodded. I’d been studying Taekwondo for almost three years now, if not as diligently as I should. My instructor in Seoul, Mr. Chong, criticized me often for not attending every class. I told him it was my job. That didn’t mollify him.